Crews prepare for summer power surge

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Power crews from PPL were out in Manheim Township, Lancaster County on Tuesday making sure power lines are ready for summer weather.

That includes replacing circuit breakers across the Lancaster area, and replacing a power line to Mount Joy. They’re also building a new transmission line between Honeybrook and Twin Valley substations.

Crews are also focusing on tree trimming now to help them in thunderstorms. The ice storms this winter put another focus on that for this year.

PPL says the duration of power outages on their system was down by 11 percent last year. They’re hoping to keep that trend going this year.

Workers were out today in the heat replacing weakened poles and power lines.

“Our employees are another big contributing factor to our improved reliability,” says Dana Ferber, director of regional operations at PPL. “They work in the heat of the summer and the cold of the winter, and sometimes in very severe conditions.”

Power grid operator PJM is forecasting that customers in their 13 states, including PA, will use more than 157,000 megawatts of power at the hottest peak of this summer. That’s higher than last summer.